


β-D-galactopyranosyl-(1→4)-D-glucose

by Quality_Street_Sin



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff and Humor, Human Disaster Eddie Brock, Kinda, M/M, Protective Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Sickfic, Venom Does His Best Lactaid Impression, Xenobiological Confusion, organ snuggling, sciencey jargon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 04:25:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16988001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quality_Street_Sin/pseuds/Quality_Street_Sin
Summary: Nothing in the world will stand between Eddie Brock and pizza. Not even the quirks of his own body.Venom learns very quickly why this is a problem.Considering the subject matter, surprisingly not gross.





	β-D-galactopyranosyl-(1→4)-D-glucose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crimsonherbarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonherbarium/gifts).



> Lookit me ma, I wrote something that's not weird porn! 
> 
> For my B, the real OG, [crimsonherbarium.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonherbarium) You enabled me when nobody else would. For 2018 r/fanfiction discord holiday pledge

Fatty, salty, carb-based foods had a near-universal appeal.

Venom, despite being evolutionary light-years away from Eddie Brock, was enjoying pizza just as much as his host was. The tide of tasty, greasy, cheese-soaked macromolecules and marinara sauce was one of the best things they'd ever shared.

“Thank fucking god for Dominoes,” Eddie said, mumbling around the better part of a slice of meat feast, which he’d rolled up and dunked in gloriously liquid nacho cheese. "Thank god for blood money."

Venom hummed his agreement, hijacking the nerves in his host's mouth to share in that gloriously human sensation. Simultaneously, he reached out into the crumb-riddled expanse of the cardboard pizza box and took a slice of his own. They were sharing a large pizza, which would normally have been woefully insufficient, but there was a reason they were celebrating, and that reason was wiping half a cartel off the map. For now, a snack would suffice.

And getting all the sides helped. Wings were their favourite — Eddie and Venom had an even split in preference between eating the meat and eating the bones.

A moderately engaging horror movie was playing on the TV in front of them, courtesy of Anne’s Netflix password, but it wasn't enough to stem the tide of melatonin that always happened around now. Eddie was quick to finish his share of pizza and then succumb to drowsy content.

When he slept sitting upright, he snored.

Venom spent the next quarter of an hour or so rummaging through almost-empty boxes, sending out tendrils to scoop up stray pieces of cheese and ham, crunching through chicken bones, and finishing off the cinnamon sticks they'd bought in what probably amounted to bulk.

The size of Eddie's apartment was advantageous, as it meant he didn't have to stretch as far to get to the chocolate cream Oreos in the kitchen.

Venom opened the cabinet as quietly as possible and tore into the cellophane. He just about finished demolishing their current cookie stock when he realised something was wrong. Something was hurting his host.

The symbiote snapped back into Eddie's body like a tape measure retracting and frantically began to check it over, organ by precious organ, searching for the source of his discomfort. They shared their pain, across the translation barrier created by their vastly different systems of nociception. This was a strange sensation, dull and thudding, almost like a bruise — but he couldn't find any sign of an injury to fix.

When he got to the gut, things began to make sense.

At the molecular, cellular level, things were off and very much so. The sinking feeling struck him as he slipped past the diaphragm, their cells intermingling seamlessly, and pooled around the pink intestines beneath.

Water. Water, water, everywhere, in quantities and places that it didn't belong. Oozing from tortured cells  _ into _ the lumen rather than  _ out _ , like a microcosm of a flood. Venom watched, baffled, as the natural order of things was completely perverted. He wasn't  _ entirely _ sure of human biology just yet — Eddie had flunked that particular class in high school — but he was pretty sure that the kelp-like sway of the microvilli he was vicariously experiencing wasn't good.

Humans needed water. Humans needed a  _ whole lot _ of water, and were constantly absorbing through the intestine, as if it didn't cover 70% of their planet and not doing it NOW meant they'd lose the chance.

Therefore, having so much of it hanging around this close to the end of the alimentary canal could only be a bad thing. The fact that more was flowing in and priming itself for untimely expulsion was just the cherry on top of the catastrophe-cake.

How much water could Eddie afford to lose? Anne had bullied him into buying a reusable water bottle some time in the past, and he still kept to the schedule printed on the side, so Venom had no idea.

Further along, the situation only worsened.

Venom was not the only organism that Eddie played host to. Luckily, the anaerobic microbes that hung out in his insides weren't sentient enough to be potential competition for his affection. Usually, they were peaceful, simple things, as was normal for non-pathogenic prokaryotes.

Right now, they were going  _ crazy _ .

Certain species — visible in the tactile sense, through the receptors of Eddie's cells — were losing their little unicellular  _ minds.  _ It was like a bacterial rave—a chaotic hum of respiration and reproduction and jazzed-up activity. Venom wished they  _ were _ sentient, so he could have told them to knock it off—their sudden burst of party spirit was bothering Eddie. They were  _ hurting _ him.

He considered the merits of wiping them out entirely then decided it wasn't worth it if it meant months of careful recolonization and kale smoothies, which both of them despised. In Venom's brief stint with Anne, he'd absorbed the knowledge of several hundred health magazines, and kale seemed like some people's answer to everything.

Venom settled into his host's abdominal cavity, clinging to the organs in something like a hug. Like he could just snuggle them until things felt better.

What was wrong?

Probing through Eddie's cells again — using them in a way the human brain couldn't — provided an answer.

Sugar. Too much of a particular pesky disaccharide, in too advanced a location. 

Which meant if he just found  _ more  _ somehow, he could fix this. It was a simple measure of solutes — if they got more sugar on the right side of the lumen, osmosis would kick in and it would sort itself out. The human body was nonsensical sometimes, but the concept of a concentration gradient applied everywhere. 

Finding sugar in the human body was surprisingly easy. And besides, Eddie was sleeping — so it wasn't like he needed it for much of anything. So, Venom zeroed in on his liver, probed tiny feelers into his bloodstream, and went to work.

* * *

Eddie woke up woozy.

It was the same sort of giddy fog that came on after a couple days without eating, which made no sense. He'd literally just had pizza, some point before the TV had gotten worried for his welfare and asked if he was still watching.

His stomach hurt. That he expected; anything concerning cheese came with an aftertaste of bloating and regret. What he didn't expect was the way the world swung sideways the second he stood up, blackness fizzing in from the edges of his vision.

**Eddie‽**

Venom caught him, a frenzy of black tendrils springing up between him and the floor. Two formed into clawed hands and anchored themselves to the ceiling. Eddie was suspended, somewhere between being held and being in a hammock.

"Thanks," he mumbled. "What was that?"

**Something was wrong.** A tendril emerged from the black mass, stroked over his stomach.  **In here. I thought I fixed it...**

"Oh. You can't fix that, bud." Eddie reached a hand into the network of goo, mourning the minor damage to the ceiling. "That just happens if I have milk. Or cheese. Just… dairy. I can’t. It’s basically not food for me.” 

**Your species deliberately eats things you can’t process?**

“No, most of us can. We’re mammals. It’s a whole thing,” Eddie said. He tried to sit up, and the world went fuzzy again. “V, what the hell did you  _ do _ ?” 

**Tried to fix it.**

The voice in his head sounded deliberately obstinate, snarking back at him as he was slowly lowered onto the sofa.

**Apparently, that was futile.**

“I really appreciate it,” Eddie told the empty air. Venom was too enmeshed with his nervous system to  _ not  _ know he’d messed up. Another appendage snaked free, from somewhere near his spine, and lay gently across his abdomen by way of apology. “But maybe next time, just... let nature take its course?” 

**Nature likes to hurt you.**

**But...** **_Fine_. **


End file.
